Hi Friends,
I have been wanting to write on the blog for a very long time and just last week I was prompted by Anil Ajoba too to share something about Astronomy on the blog. As a very interesting and relatively rare celestial event is going to happen on 6th June, I would not have missed this opportunity to make a beginning on the blog. So here we go…….
The event which is about to unfold literally in front of our eyes on morning of 6th June is the Transit of planet Venus across the Sun. Some of you may be already aware of this as things are getting written about it in the media. So, what is a transit:
A transit is when one object in the sky passes in front of another. In this case, we’ll see Venus move across the Sun’s face. Think of it as a mini-eclipse.
Venus orbits the Sun closer in than we do, taking about 225 days to circle it once. We don’t see a transit every time, though, because its orbit is tilted slightly (by about 3°) to the Earth’s, so most of the time it passes near the Sun, but misses it. Only when the planets align just right do we see an actual transit.
So if you have missed watching the transit in 2004 (I guess most of the teenage group guys/gals would be around 8-10 yrs in 2004 and must have most likely not seen it – though a few parents might have), it is your last chance to see it (even if you live till 2117, you would be just too old to appreciate it).
So don’t miss it ……!!!!
I have been wanting to write on the blog for a very long time and just last week I was prompted by Anil Ajoba too to share something about Astronomy on the blog. As a very interesting and relatively rare celestial event is going to happen on 6th June, I would not have missed this opportunity to make a beginning on the blog. So here we go…….
The event which is about to unfold literally in front of our eyes on morning of 6th June is the Transit of planet Venus across the Sun. Some of you may be already aware of this as things are getting written about it in the media. So, what is a transit:
A transit is when one object in the sky passes in front of another. In this case, we’ll see Venus move across the Sun’s face. Think of it as a mini-eclipse.
The geometry of the orbits make the transit happen in a rather weird way. Transits come in pairs of 8 years between events, but each pair is separated from the next two by more than a century. The last pair happened in 1874/1882. The next transit after that was in 2004. Now we have the second of our current pair (2012), and then the next two won’t be until 2117/2125.
So don’t miss it ……!!!!
The size of Venus is comparable to Earth, but since it is much closer to the Sun, it appears as a small disk, seen in silhouette against the Sun. As the disk is small, it takes time for it to cross the Sun’s disk thus making the mini eclipse last for a much longer time than the more conventional solar eclipse caused by the Moon. The total duration of the transit from first point of contact till the last point of contact is a staggering 6hrs 30min. Unfortunately, the entire transit will not be visible from Mumbai as it starts at 04:45 am while the Sun is still below the horizon. However, the transit will still be in progress at sunrise (which is around 06:45 am) and will continue till 10:20 am. So you can view the transit anytime between 07:00 am and 10:00 am. At 07:00 am it will be at it’s ‘Greatest Transit’, meaning at the most central part of the Sun’s disk.
A word of CAUTION here to all: DO NOT attempt to view the Sun with naked eyes or use objects like normal sun glasses, photograph negative, X-ray film to look at the Sun. This is very dangerous and can cause harm to the retina in your eyes. To watch the transit do one of the following:
- Get special Sun viewing goggles which are available at Nehru Planetarium or
- The transit will be streamed live on many web sites such as these and can be viewed on your computer live.
There are many websites which provide a lot of additional scientific information on this event and all of you who want to know more about it can look up these pages:
Hope you find the information intersting and have a awesome and safe viewing of this event on 6th June.
Signing off for now to be back with something more interesting and informative very soon.
Take care and best wishes,
Amit
this is certainly an interesting phenomenon.i attended a program conducted on this topic by TIFR(tata institute of fundamental research). there they told us about every detail of this wonder.they even told us how to watch it in r house(taking all precautions). i n baba r trying 2 build a simple telescope to watch the transit.
ReplyDeleteThanks Amit, quite useful information.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, perfect job from Amit ably supported by Mrunal.
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